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[mann alive]

i think master chief is an enlisted rank, also.

[Dragonrider]

I couldn't find it on any of the lists of officers I was given, so I just kind of stuck it in.

[Mazian]

[Mazian]

[Mazian]

[CoffeeJedi]

[Mazian]

[Dragonrider]

I for one intend to take my orders seriously. I as much as told Melissa that. She trusts me, and I won't ruin that. I DO think that she needs to know that PF is bad news, but it is not my place to do more than let her know about my fears. I do hope that she'll keep the SP, though.

Also, here's the updated list of proper ranking, thanks to Voipme.

Col. Xnbomb (O-6)
Commander MikeWas (O-5)
Mst. Chf. Chappy (E-9)
Lt. Comm Shad0 (O-4)
Lt. Weephun (O-3)
Lt. Adam? (O-3)
Ensign Krystyn (O-1)
Ensign Kamen (O-1)
Ensign Dragonrider (O-1)
Sgt. Mann-Alive (E-6)
Corporal Conrad Mazian (E-4)

Turns out I'm NOT the lowest on the rungs...

[CoffeeJedi]

even if it is taking place in the 26th century, you're still just a civilian hacker pretending to be a crewmember to get information out of the AI, right?

[krystyn]

I dunno, she keeps referring to primitive data recording and equipment, and a lot of the sound files and Dana's blog are pointedly written to indicate that we are 'eavesdropping on the future' ...

(edited to add that this post is in response to Mazian, mostly, but it took me a while to finish, so other people posted in the meantime. Heh!)

Something that I was thinking real hard about last night as I drove home from the movie theatre was how nicely that phone call with Melissa toed the line for me, in terms of ARGishness vs. Bungie Puzzle vs. RPG vs. Oh-Who-Cares,-Let's-Just-Play-and-Have-Fun,-Labels-Suck -- I never once had to truly become someone else in order to make that call a 'success' (in other words, make the axon hot, and become a trusted crew member). I had to think fast on my feet, but everything I said was the truth, except for telling her my rank was Ensign. Even so, I'm sort of an Ensign here, aren't I?

My story about the girl who lied to me/about me was true, as lame as the story was, and I even managed a white lie about the 'rogue process,' not admitting to knowing of her, but not denying any knowledge, either.

Melissa is a broken entity, infected with a very determined and mysterious flea who will stop at nothing to sit pretty upon her shoulder and whisper in her ear. I am not sure I am loyal to her completely, nor should I be. She is not herself right now, and I feel a certain obligation to the SP - perhaps not to actively warn her, as I think she can take care of herself, but to at least skirt the issue until more things become clear to me. The SP could indeed be telling the story of Perdita as the story of Melissa - Dragonrider's story about her sister and Melissa's keen interest and empathy was very marked and curious, in light of how Perdita has been systematically cyborg'd by the Rat! The SP's Perdita chapters belie a great capacity for sympathy -and- empathy, and I don't think I could easily throw that away in the face of some role-played perceived loyalty to an A.I. that is not quite right in the motherboard.

Not totally disagreeing with you, Mazian, but I think I might be coming at this from a different angle, and so that changes my 'motivation,' as it were.

[Mazian]

[Dragonrider]

and we just happen to be the stand-ins.

[weephun]

Question: why is everyone here so trusting of the SP? I personally have nothing against here per se, but we have nothing to go off of other than the fact that her communications with us have seemed nice and she has helped us to gain access to some more wav files right? Hey, Melissa's giving us wav files too and even more of them. Heck, even the SP herself has admitted that she doesn't know who she is ... for all we know, she IS the Covenant virus. She certainly wouldn't tell us if she was.

As far as I can tell, Melissa is the only AI here of the 3 on which we have any reliable data as to WHO they are. She is a shipboard Navy AI assigned to the Apocalypso.

Everyone also seems to be pretty much in agreement that the Pious Flea is bad, right? Well, the SP seems to be getting pretty buddy-buddy with the PF also. Speaking it's language, talking about teaching it to play chess, etc. Why does the PFs association with Melissa cause so much grief, but not the association with SP?


As far as in vs out of game. I know that Melissa trusts me as a member of her crew and has asked for help with something from me. I don't think it matters much whether I consider myself weephun computer engineer with a wife 2 kids and a dog living in suburbia or weephun Lt. on the UNSC spy ship Apocalypso crash landed on Earth, I've still got a job to do (which is probably mostly just answer the phone when it rings and report what she wants me to report) and I'm going to do it. And have the time of my life in the process

Anyway, just my $.02.

[krystyn]

I don't necessarily trust SP, either, but I do feel a sense of obligation because she is this extremely clever entity stuck inside a foofy honey website server, and she has been slipping us all sorts of highly-sensitive information!

She's a resource, and quite a charming one at that.

Thought experiment:

If she were Covenant, would she stoop so low as to try and act like us humans, the species she would theoretically wish to wipe out? Would she immerse herself in language and pop culture so completely and easily? Even opening up the can of worms of falling back on Halo canon - is there a precedent for the Covenant to mimic humanity, or human-created A.I. in such a fashion? Even though they are obviously quite capable of wreaking apocalyptic havoc on anything they choose to, are they capable of such subtlety as well?

[Dragonrider]

I don't think anyone out there really TRUSTS the SP. I don't. She's not really given us any reason to trust her, after all. In fact, by spying on Melissa, she's shown that she's not necessarily able to be trusted at all. Do we really want to trust a creature that's spying on everyone at the drop of a hat?

She IS cute, though. She tells interesting stories and has given us some valuable information. She is not an entity to be underestimated, and the same goes for Melissa the the PF. I think she may have more to offer us if we can get Melissa to let us keep her around, though.

Think about it. It's almost guaranteed that Melissa's angry at the SP's spying. ( I mean, I think that's the rogue) If things get to such a situation, we could always use the spy to spy on the spyers. Turn her into an unwilling double agent, as it were.

Okay, enough ranting from a lowly ensign.